Racism

Mate, they had a frigging civil war!

The concept of “race” as we know isn’t nearly that old. The whole idea that skin color, as opposed to say eye color or hair curliness is how people are categorized had to be invented. As well, for most of human history people weren’t likely to meet or even hear of people of different “races”, except as rumors. The Xoy tribe might have hated the Yox because of their funny headdresses, but they probably looked much alike.

I know, but it wasn’t a race war, was it?

Well, let’s put it this way. There are plenty of Japanese who look down on Koreans, and plenty of Koreans who hate the Japanese.

Is that racism? Because 80 years ago people would have no problem talking about the English Race, or the Irish Race, or the French Race, or the German Race.

Racism isn’t inherent, in the sense that people naturally hate people who have different skin colors and hair textures. You have to come into contact with people who are different from you to hate them because they are different.

Well, that’s one of the problems with claims about how racism is intrinsic to humanity; define racism. Are the people of Asia a race? The Irish? Green eyed people? There isn’t any such objective thing as race, so I don’t see how we could have an innate hatred of a concept that has to be invented and can be redefined arbitrarily.

Good grief. Just call it “not liking people who are different than us” itis then.

But that’s not “racism”. Xenophobia includes the opposite sex, different religions, different nationalities, different customs; all sorts of things that have nothing to do with the social construct of race.

I don’t think racism is fundamental to human nature, but tribalism is. The need to identify as part of a group, something that necessarily involves creating an “us” and “them” view of the world however benignly intended, is part of who we are. And there are countless ways to define “us” and “them”. Race has, certainly, been the most often used surrogate for tribal identity of that nature, but it’s hardly the only one - hell, just watch Survivor. Religion, nationality, language, stars on bellies …the trick is in recognizing when tribalism crosses over into denying the equal humanity of tribal non-members.

I think racism is just an overly obvious offshoot of mankind’s natural in-group/out-group tendencies. Favoring race, therefore, is no different from favorite gender, political group, age, familial contacts, or even sports teams.

To the best of my knowledge, it’s a fairly modern convention to teach that races are equal in potential at a group level; it’s a fairly Western/European specific convention to teach that humans are even morally equivalent.

It seems likely that no society has ever existed which does not parse out various populations and assume either a fundamental inferiority or a moral inferiority.

Depending on how you want to parse the concept of “race” it seems a reasonable supposition that racism–assigning relative rankings among various populations/races–is ubiquitous throughout history.

Since I am one of those who believe there are innate (genetic) average differences among populations (including populations grouped under the loose concept of “race”), I don’t share your optimism that racism will go away any time soon. In fact, quite the opposite; as we unravel the gene code we may find that distributions of genes coding for various core competencies do differ in average frequency among “races.” I suspect that will be a difficult moment for those who have assumed all along that any notion that we are genetically different in our average capabilities based on our “race” belongs to the uneducated past.

Down the road far enough when a mobile world hybridizes us into a single phenotypically indistinguishable population, perhaps racism will go away. I don’t see that happening in the proximate future…in my view it would be nice to see a world where no one cares what racial group you belong to any more than they care what color of shoes you prefer. It has no direct relevance for you as an individual human being.

Do you really want this debate to be exactly what the definition of racism is? Cause, if so, you can have at it without me and you’ll all be here until hell freezes over.

Why not let each poster define what racism is and what inherent is when they are making their arguments/examples/whatevers?

I gave an example of how the functional equivalent of racism could arise based upon basic human nature and independent of the “social construct of race”. Feel free to argue that it wouldnt/doesnt actually work that way.

If you want to argue that my example isnt your definition of racism or that my model isnt what you’d call inherent, be my guest. Haven’t we learned yet that labels are less important than concepts?

Because then we’ll just spend pages and pages talking past each other. The question is, “is racism inherent”; answering that requires that you define what racism and race are.

Because it applies to any number of things that aren’t race. And it also doesn’t even always apply to racism; racism exists against people who aren’t “different than us”; who just happen to have a member of the “wrong race” somewhere in their ancestry but who aren’t actually different at all. Racism is about more than just the dislike of people who are different.

I think the term “racism” should be reserved for the notion that there are innate differences among races; differences immutable to the influence of nurture.

It should not carry an implication of whether or not another group is liked or disliked. This helps distinguish it from concept of xenophobia.

Actually, I think it reflects our cultural conditioning to automatically think of skin color as the “most obvious” visible distinction.

I think of my daughter at age four or five, accompanying me into an international grocery, wearing what a great many little girls in America and their parents know as a “princess” dress. (That means something like this.)

As we headed in, a family came out, and their little girl was also wearing a “princess” dress! The two little girls were about the same age and size.

My daughter is fair-skinned, with light golden brown hair. The girl coming out had a dark south-Asian skin tone and black hair.

My daughter pointed, and exclaimed with delight, “Look Dad! She looks JUST LIKE ME!”

people categorize things inherently. if an aspect happens to be qualified to one race and it is noted, is that really racism or is it just human nature?

for example, the most NEUTRAL person ever spawned is transported to the 1840’s and notices that everyone dark is a slave, is he RACIST for assuming that the next black man he meets is a slave? if he does, he’s not a real fast learner is he?

i think the categorization is human nature and cannot be denied. the teaching of certain preconceptions is dependent on the social norms of the day. i don’t think people are more disposed towards racism at one era or another, but merely it’s a result of circumstance.

If people TELL you what THEY mean by racism in their particular example and arguments we dont need this back and forth shit do we?

There is a massive range of what could be defined as racism. Why not just nip this problem in the bud from the get go?

Are we interested in the OP’s general question or do we want to turn this into a definitional pissing contest? Well, I am pretty sure which way you want to go.

See, the thread is already getting derailed by definitional issues.

You certainly can’t break down those differences by DNA. In a room of x number of previously unknown people, it is quite possible for dark-skinned people and a light-skinned people to be more alike in DNA than dark-skinned people or light-skinned people.

That’s how insignificant skin color is.

So it sounds like quite a stretch to think that prejudice based on skin color is inate. Those biases have to be taught.

In order to have “confirmation bias,” there has to be a bias. That bias is learned – usually from parents and family very early.

Right. The Japanese race looks down on the Korean race, the German race looks down on the Polish race, the British race looks down on the French race.

That’s pretty ubiquitous.

It remains to be seen whethere there are any average genetic differences between Japanese and Koreans, or between the British and the French.

And here we go. We’ll find out black people are naturally dumb, and therefore discrimination against black people is prefectly rational. Except, no it won’t.

Once we unravel the genetic code and find for instance that allele X and locus Y creates enzyme Q, which is correlated with higher IQ scores, there won’t be any need to discover whether allele X is more frequently found in whites or blacks or asians. Because nobody will care whether people of Northern European ancestry have the allele at 27%, people of Chinese ancestry have the allele at 24%, and people of Australian Aborigine ancestry have the allele at 78%. We’ll care about whether little Billy who’s just starting preschool has the allele. Nobody will take a look at Billy, see that he’s black, and assume that means he’s naturally dumb just because people of West African ancestry have the allele at only 10%. Especially since the majority of people classified as “black” in America have European ancestors.

If there’s an allele correlated with different cognitive abilities it won’t matter whether certain populations tend to have the allele at higher or lower frequencies, what will matter is which individuals have the allele.

Minor nitpick: You would to know about every society to prove the statement but finding only one counter-example (a non racist society) would disprove it.